Just curious if I'm unlucky, or if this is an issue for anyone else. Recently needed a caliper for my 2003 WRX. Drivers Front, if it matters. Ordered one from Rock Auto, looked right, pads fit, etc. But when I went to bolt it up, it wouldn't fit around the rotor. Like the rotor was maybe 1/4" too big. If I take the rotor off, the bolt holes for the caliper match the mounts on the car, but the assembly won't fit together. Put the new one next to the old one, sure enough the old one is bigger, but you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. Tried again with Advanced Auto. Different brand, same problem. Caliper looks right until you try to put it around the rotor. To be clear, I do not have a big brake kit or any sort of swap. Brakes are stock, or at least the rotors & calipers are anyway. Owned since new, so there's no dreaded previous owner mystery brakes. Anyone else having this problem? At this point I'm assuming there were two different but similar calipers out there, and because they were so similar no one caught it. And now they're listed as being the same in computer inventory. Either I'm getting 2.5 Impreza brakes when I need Impreza WRX brakes, or I'm getting Impreza WRX brakes from 2005 when they're different than 2003, or maybe I'm the US spec version WRX is different than the rest of the world. Something like that. But I don't know where to start in order to specify "hey, no, I need the larger one", especially when only one size is listed. Anyway, mainly just posting to vent. But figured I'd put this out there as a warning to the rest of ya as well.
I'm willing to bet that they only stock non-turbo calipers and the supplier thinks they're all the same. FWIW, you can buy a caliper rebuild kit from Subaru for cheap and rebuild the calipers versus buying new ones. Hell, I *may* still have a rebuild kit I bought for 04 WRX brakes that I put on my 99 RS years ago. If I do, you can have it.
I had a similar issue with rotor size for my GD STi years ago. They had the WRX and STi as the same rotor.
Nothing worth mentioning really. The sliders on mine were stuck, ended up forcing them out, polishing & lubing a bit, and now I'm back on the road. Still wondering what's going on with with two different companies sending me two different brands and getting the same size wrong part. If anyone else has a 2003 & sees the same problem, let us know.